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- [00:03]
Peter Schiff
You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute you're up half a million in soybeans and the next, boom.
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Scott Bessant
Your kids don't go to college and
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Peter Schiff
they've repossessed your Bentley.
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Scott Bessant
Are you with me? The revolution starts now. Starts now. We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it. Turn those machines back on. You are about to enter the Peter Schiff show me the fire. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth. The Peter Schiff show is on. Know when they decided that they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness. Your money, your stories, your freedom. The Peter Ship Show. Welcome everybody. Well, the last podcast I did was on Sunday night. It was a live special of the Shift Gold Friday market wrap, which I did on a Sunday because I was still in El Salvador on Friday. And it was Thursday and Friday where you had the all out assault on gold and silver with gold dropping $500 an ounce on Friday alone, right? The biggest one day drop ever $Wiseman. I remember when gold was less than $500 an ounce, let alone dropping by $500 an ounce. Silver dropped $30 in a single day. Both hit all time record highs. The prior day, gold was close to 5,600 and silver had topped $121 an ounce. It wasn't a shortage of people on the financial media saying, you see, we told you gold was a bubble. We told you silver was a bubble, right? That they thought it had popped. They don't understand that nothing changed. But as I mentioned, I don't want to repeat what I said on, on Sunday. So if you didn't see that video, go to my Shift Gold YouTube channel and watch it. I think it was the most popular Friday market rap I've done. We had over 200,000 people who, who watched it. So it was, I guess, a timely podcast. But if you're not one of those 200,000 people, then you should go check it out. Because I discussed the plot behind the sell off, I didn't think it was a random event. I thought it was strategically done to achieve a certain result. But the people who were writing the obituaries on the gold and silver bull market I think were premature. Now I don't think you're gonna immediately hit new highs. So certainly not in silver because new highs are 30% higher. Right? You're at $90. You need to go up a third 30 bucks to get back up to 120. But I'm very happy with a slower, steadier increase. It was getting difficult for people to buy silver when it was rising so fast. It was a little scary. It's not nearly as scary now. Now that you know where the top was and that you're clearly not buying it right. You're buying a very substantial pullback. Yes, you're still having to pay $90, which may seem like a high price, but it's not $120. Some people paid 120. So you're getting a good buy at 90. And the same thing with gold. Five thousand dollars. Gold. Yeah, it seems expensive, but somebody paid five thousand, five hundred and fifty. So you're not buying a high. And of course, those are not the highs. This bull market has got years and years and years to run. So we're not even in the vicinity of a high. But, you know, there are a lot of people, I think, that were hesitant to come into the market because they were waiting for a pullback. Well, we had it. It's over. You don't have to wait for it anymore. It's now behind us. I think that's going to be particularly important in the mining stocks because I think one of the reasons that the mining stocks were not rising spectacularly when gold and silver were making these new highs. And in fact, the day that silver made its new high above 121, most silver stocks were down on the day. So investors were very hesitant thinking that there was going to be a big pullback. Now they were right. We did have a big pullback, but now it's in the past. So I think some confidence is going to slowly be rebuilt. And I do believe that silver stocks and gold stocks will make new highs before gold and silver make new highs. And that's very bullish. But it also means that it's a great opportunity to buy into the gold and silver mining stock. So don't just buy the physical metals. And you can do that obviously at shift gold. And by the way, as I was warning, the premiums have widened. So even though silver went way down, the silver coins and bars that we sold, they went down too, but not as much. The drop wasn't as great because the spreads went up because there was a lot of physical demand to buy. The dip, the big collapse happened in the paper market where there is no physical. So that's another factor that you have to bear in mind. I do expect over time, the demand to increase and outstrip the supply. And so that's gonna keep pressuring the premiums on, you know, especially the smaller coins and bars, you know, 1 ounce coins. So get them now, you know, go to shift gold and get them. But these mining stocks, I'm confident they're making new highs long before, long before silver. I think silver stocks will make new highs by a decent margin before silver gets back above 120. Because I think the fear that kept the silver stock investors on the sidelines, I think that will slowly subside as the market starts to repair from the decline and, and move higher. And this is in sharp contrast to what's happening in bitcoin. And look, this is obviously not a surprise to my audience. I have been saying this, I've been warning about this, I've been telling you crypto guys that, you know, the game is over and you got to get out while you can. Well, bitcoin right now is at 72,500. Now it's down. If you want to compare it to gold, Bitcoin right now is 14 and a half ounces of gold. In 2021, at its peak, it was 36.3 ounces of gold. Bitcoin is now down 60%. 60% priced in gold since its November 2021 high. Right. This is 2026. Now it's not November, but it's more than four years ago, not quite five, but down 60%. And think about all the things that have happened with bitcoin because back then, you know, we didn't have the Bitcoin ETFs yet. You know, we didn't have the bitcoin president, we didn't have the bitcoin strategic reserve, we didn't have Microstrategy. And I'm about talk about them in a minute and all the other copycat bitcoin treasury companies. Right. Despite all that, it went down by 60% in terms of gold. But even if you want to price it in dollars, bitcoin is less than 6% above its 2021 high. In dollars. In dollars. What a lousy return on bitcoin. And remember its whole claim to fame, the whole reason you're supposed to buy bitcoin is because it's the best returning asset yet it hasn't been. And the best proof of what a lousy asset bitcoin has been for most people, not for everybody. Yeah, if you bought it early enough, if you got in on the ground floor, yeah, you cleaned up, of course. But if you got in in the last 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years, which is when the vast majority of people got in, it's been Lousy. And the best example is MicroStrategy. MicroStrategy's average price on about 55 billion spent buying Bitcoin is over 60,000, 67,000. Excuse me, just over 67,000. I mean 76,000. Excuse me, Just over 76,000. We're now barely above 72,000. So he's down about 4,000 per Bitcoin. I mean, what is that, 6% or something like that? He's lost money on the bitcoin. The biggest bitcoin buyer in the world has lost money. MicroStrategy or strategy, excuse me, would have been much better off doing just about anything else. I mean, obviously had he bought gold and silver, I mean, it'd be night and day. But Strategy could have just taken all that money that had spent buying bitcoin and just put it in a money market and it would have had a positive return, would have got 4% interest a year. So 4% for five years, that's plus 20%. Instead, it's down 6%. Now, of course, if you owned MicroStrategy stock, which by the way hit a new 52 week low today. It's now down more than 75% from its peak price last year. 75% down on strategy. Stock was down 4.7% today. So it's at one hundred and twenty nine now. Yes. Before Saylor went on his bitcoin buying binge, the stock was below $20. I forget exactly where it was, but I'm pretty sure it was less than $20. So if you happen to own MicroStrategy back then and you sold out, you know, at any point, including even selling out today, you did good, right? You made money because MicroStrategy Strategy bought all this bitcoin. But the actual decision to buy bitcoin was a bad one because Strategy lost money on the bitcoin. As I said, Strategy would have been better off had it just bought a money market. But then again, had Saylor said, hey, the reason we're gonna sell you all this stock is so we can take the money and buy money market, nobody would have paid a premium for his stock. The reason that MicroStrategy, I keep saying micro, the reason that Strategy has gone up so much is because it was able to leverage the fact that it could sell stock at a premium to buy bitcoin and therefore get what amounted to free bitcoin. And the reason it was able to do that to accumulate all this bitcoin was because the people who were buying Strategy stock wanted exposure to Bitcoin. They wanted the upside of bitcoin with less downside risk and they thought they were getting that, especially the convertible prefers. But what the last five years have proven is that the people who wanted exposure to bitcoin were wrong. There was no reason to have exposure to bitcoin because bitcoin was a lousy investment. Over the last five years that Strategy has been buying it. But the people who bought stock and strategy didn't realize that. They thought bitcoin would be a good investment. Turned out it was a lousy investment and now the party's over, right? The air is coming out of the bitcoin bubble and strategy no longer has a viable business model. The problem is he has to maintain the fiction of these preferreds where he's now raised the dividend from 10% to 11% and now to 11 and a quarter percent. Course, there's no income to pay these dividends, so he just has to eat into the principle of his company. But I think we're in a slow death spiral for strategy. But as the price of bitcoin goes further and further below their average cost, it is going to compound the problems. Now, I know Saylor says, well, you know, there's no point where I'm ever going to have to sell bitcoin. There will come a point because at some point the notes are due, right, the ones that actually have a set maturity. And he's going to have to come up with the money. And so the only asset that he's going to have on his balance sheet is bitcoin. So bitcoin is going to have to be sold eventually. But the other thing that might force the sale of some bitcoin is a big discount to nav, which I think is going to happen. I think you're going to see Strategy trading for half of the value of its bitcoin and that will put a lot of pressure on, on Saylor to close that discount by selling bitcoin to buy back Strategy stock. I mean, obviously he'd be a fool not to do it, but then again he'd be a fool to do it, I guess, because the minute he started to sell bitcoin, the price would implode. So he's going to be boxed in a no win situation. So it's just all lose. So you want to get rid of your bitcoin, you want to get rid of your strategy? Yes. Even though strategy is on a 52 week low. Remember where the stock came from, it was below $20 and it's going back below $20. Because the only thing it's got is bitcoin. And bitcoin is going down. And so if you got it, you want to sell it. But the best thing you could do, obviously, is to try to make back the money. Some people now are going to say, well, Peter, you know, I bought my Bitcoin at 80,000 or 90,000 or 100,000. I don't want to lose money. You've lost money, right? That, that, that's already happened. If you want to make back the money that you lost, don't think you have to make it back with bitcoin because you'll probably just end up losing more. Where you can make back the money you lost on bitcoin is in gold and silver or in gold and silver mining stocks. And I think the sooner you make that switch, the easier you'll be able to make up that loss. Anyway, we got a quick commercial break coming right back, so stick around. If you're running any kind of business, whether you're selling products online, managing inventory, or just trying to keep your operations organized, you know how complicated it can get juggling multiple software platforms that don't talk to each other. That's where today's sponsor, Odoo, comes in. 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So if you want to start streamlining your business operations and actually save money doing it, check out Odoo using the link in the description. You know, just in the 15 minutes that I was doing this podcast, the gold rally fizzled out. And so gold was just above 5,000 and now it's below 4,950, 4,946. So gold's turned negative. And silver, which was above 89 has had an even sharper reversal and it's now at 87 40. So a lot of volatility in the metals market, but I think the lows are in and I think we're headed back in the other direction. But, you know, I was listening to a, I guess as a reporter asking Donald Trump questions about, about bitcoin. And, and you know, you know, why he wants to, you know, focus so much attention on, on crypto and bitcoin. And, you know, one thing he said is, well, I believe in crypto. You know, that's why I'm doing it. I believe in it. But what he said was that if we don't do this, if America doesn't lead in crypto, if we're not the bitcoin capital, China's gonna get there, China's gonna beat us. And so he said the reason that we have to win in crypto is to prevent China from winning. And I'm thinking to myself, I mean, China's like, they're laughing hysterically at this if they think that, you know, they gotta beat us to the bitcoin. They don't, they don't care about bitcoin. I mean, they banned it a long time ago. They know it's, it's a scam. The Chinese have no interest in bitcoin, right? So the idea that we have to preempt China, that we have no choice but to, you know, waste all of our scarce resources and, and misdirect our capital to becoming the leader in crypto just to beat China to it when China has absolutely no interest. I mean, you know, this is great for them as far as they're concerned, because where are they putting their resources while we're creating meme coins? They're building factories. And while Americans are buying bitcoin and shitcoin, whatever, they're buying gold and silver. So they're doing smart things with their money and we're doing dumb things with our money. Because supposedly if we didn't do these dumb things, then China would do the dumb things. No, we're the only one doing them anyway. So we got some jobs numbers that came out today and we got the adp, this is the private jobs numbers. Now normally on Friday we would be getting the main government non farm payroll number for January, but they've postponed it. I forget when it's coming out, it's maybe another couple of weeks, you know, I guess, you know, whatever these new government shutdowns are, is somehow preventing them from coming out with their highly inaccurate and always downwardly revised report on time. So I guess it's gonna take them longer to come up with an inaccurate number that can be revised at a later point. But we did get the ADP numbers because that's not coming from the government. And these are bad numbers. I mean, first of all, it was a very low bar that was set. So the consensus was for 45,000 jobs. That's a pretty low bar. You figure you're going to clear a bar that low? Nope. 22,000 jobs. That's it. That was actually below the low estimate because the range went from 30,000 jobs on the low end to 65,000 jobs on the high end. And we came out at 22,000. That's below the low end. That's less than half of what was forecast. And to make it worse, the prior month, which was also not a good number, it was 41,000 jobs. That was revised down to 37,000. So a weak number got even weaker. And then consecutively, the January number was even weaker than the December number. So weak numbers, the trend is weak. There's nothing good about this report. But, you know, meanwhile, the Trump administration keeps talking about how we have the strongest economy in history, strongest economy in the world, the strongest economy America has ever had. Well, if the economy is so, so strong, right, not, not just slightly strong or not just, you know, pretty strong, but the strongest ever, like never been better in all of history, how can the job numbers be this bad? I mean, how do you explain that? There is no way to explain that. Right? I mean, they can try, but it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't pass the smell test that the economy could be that strong yet the job growth could be this week. Now, also on the inflation front, right, they're still claiming that inflation is gone, inflation is non existent. You know, meanwhile oil prices, which is the main thing that Trump's been hanging his hat on, right, supposedly this $99 gas that exists somewhere, but oil is bottomed, I've been saying that. And you know, it's about $64 a barrel now. It was down around 56, I think. Was the low, something like that. So we've definitely turned around on the oil. Yeah, 54. So it got below 55. So we're almost $10 a barrel now off the low. But I think more importantly, the oil stocks, and I've been talking about them on this podcast, I talked about when I bought a lot more oil stocks myself because gold stocks and silver stocks were taken off and I wasn't Buying because I had so much already in those stocks that I was putting new money in oil, energy stocks, because energy was the one commodity that was down. Everything else is going up. And I also have a lot of money in industrial metal stocks, you know, copper and stuff like that. And those stocks are doing really well and they've hit new highs. But the energy stocks were cheap, oil was cheap. So I was buying a bunch of those stocks and we, you know, we increased our position in our managed accounts, in our funds. Well, just about every oil stock hit a new 52 week high today. I mean, they've been on fire recently. So what I think is happening with oil stocks is they are a leading indicator now the strength that we're seeing. When I started buying more, these stocks were near their lows. That's, you know, kind of what prompted me to buy them. Not only was oil low, but the oil stocks were really low. But now they've turned around and they, you know, they've been very strong, a lot stronger, let's say, than the gold stocks were because they were, they were leading, they were going up even when oil wasn't. But now oil prices are moving up, confirming the initial strength that we had in, in, in oil prices. So I got, excuse me on that, turn off my ringer. But the point I'm making by bringing up the strength in oil is the President's whole narrative of inflation is gone because we got cheap gas. That's going away. Right? I mean, the elections, the midterm elections are not until November. Gas prices are going to be much higher come November than they are now. So that, that's not gonna play. He's not going to be able to claim that we got cheap gas. And that's pretty much that I'm gonna talk, you know, about Scott Besance. I was listening to him testify before the, I guess this was. Yeah, it was the Senate, Senate Banking Committee. But you know, their answer for everything is to point to, but gas prices. Yeah, but it's all offset by cheap gas. Right? Cause if you point to any other price that's up. Yeah, but your gas is down. Right. As if that makes up for everything else. But it's all they got. Right, but they're not going to have that for much longer. And these midterm elections are going to be a big problem for the Republicans. If you notice, the last several elections the incumbents have lost. When Trump won the first time, there was no incumbent per se because Obama served out his term. But Hillary Clinton was the heir apparent to the throne. She was in his cabinet, she was secretary of state, and she was Bill Clinton's, you know, she was the first lady. So she was like the incumbent, but Trump won. Then when Trump ran for reelection as the incumbent, he lost. Then when Harris ran, yes, it wasn't Biden running for a second term, but it was Harris representing the incumbent party who was the vice president. She was de facto the incumbent, and she lost to Trump. So the party that was not in power won three consecutive elections, national elections. Why is that? Now? It's very simple. The incumbent party tried to run on the economy and asked the voters for four more years, based on this great economy, that they were going to continue. And the voters weren't buying any of that. The challenger in the election had a message of change. The challenger said, I feel your pain. The economy isn't strong. You're being lied to by the government. Elect me, I'll fix it. And the challenger won. So that's what's going to happen in the midterms and in the general election. You don't win elections in America today trying to sell the voters on a strong economy when it's a lie. Right. They don't like that. They don't like being told how great it is, and they're just not smart enough to realize it. Right. You guys are just too dumb to realize how good you have it. The economy is great whether you know it or not. Right. That's not something that wins. The way you win an election is you acknowledge what the voters know, you feel their pain. Yes, the economy is bad, and it's the incumbent's fault that the economy is bad. So you tell the truth about how bad the economy is, and then you lie about how you're going to make it better. That's what wins. Don't lie and tell people the economy is good. Lie and tell them that you're going to make it good, but tell the truth that it's lousy. And so that's what's going to happen in the midterms. The Republicans are going to have to tell the voters that everything is great. And the voters are going to know that they're being lied to. The Democrats are going to say, we can fix it. That's a lie. But admitting that it's bad will be the truth. And, you know, it's funny because I was watching and I'm going to talk about this after this next break that we have. But, you know, watching Scott Bessant testify before all these Democrats, right? And he accomplished something that I didn't even think anybody could accomplish. He actually makes the Democrats look like the party that understands economics. I mean, there's no way that they could have made themselves look like that because they don't understand anything about economics. But now the Republicans, when they're trying to defend Trump's policies, they actually make the Democrats, in a way, look smart by comparison. Right. So that's not a small feat. Right. That's not. That's not easy to do considering how completely ignorant they are of economics. But that shows you how far the Republican Party has drifted in order to get behind some of these Trumpian policies. But given how bad things are going to be, the Republicans are going to have to really pull out the stops to try to win the midterms. I mean, they're not going to just surrender. I mean, Trump does not want to lose the midterm elections. I mean, because, I mean, otherwise he's just going to be fighting impeachment. Right. If the Democrats are in the House, that's going to be the first order of business. And, you know, there's a lot of stuff that you could try to impeach him for, you know, and I'm going to get to that, because a lot of that stuff came out at the hearing today with Besant. But Trump doesn't want to have to deal with that. So. And you know, he's going to take it personally. Right. I get, you know, if the Republicans lose, right. It'll be a repudiation of his presidency if he loses, especially the Senate, too. The House and the Senate, if he loses, both chambers. Now, of course, he'll try to rationalize because, well, I wasn't on the ballot, that's why. Right. Trump's name wasn't on the ballot. But that doesn't matter. I mean, his name's on the ballot anyway. I mean, I think most people, when they go to vote for the midterms, are, Are going to be voting pro Trump or anti Trump. I don't even think it really is going to matter who's actually on the ticket. Every Republican has got a big T for Trump, and the other guy is just not Trump. Right. And so that's basically what it's going to be. And it's going to be about the economy. If you feel that you're better off than you're voting Trump, and if you feel you're not better off, then you're voting not Trump, and people are not gonna be better off. There's just, you know, prices are gonna be a lot Higher. I mean, affordability is the main issue. It was the main issue in the last campaign. It will be the next issue in these campaigns. And, you know, if the US Dollar keeps falling, which it looks to me like it will, interest rates, long term rates, they're not falling, they're inching higher. And that could pick up the pace. And the jobs market is collapsing. It's rolling over. We could be printing negative numbers. So they're going to try to do all kinds of crazy things. I mean, what Trump may do is put some tariff dividend checks in the mail. This episode is sponsored by Kalshi, the largest prediction market in the US Kalshi allows users to trade event contracts peer to peer, available across the country, including California and Texas. Download Kalshi and use code SB60 to get $10 when you trade $10. Kalshi is the largest prediction market in the United States and it lets you do something unique, trade on whether things will or won't happen. Forget playing against the House as you would on typical online sportsbooks, Kalshi is peer to peer trading. Think of it like this. You buy a yes contract if you think an event will happen. Like, will the Seahawks win the big game this year? You buy a no contract if you think it won't happen. You're trading with other users, similar to buying or selling a stock. And you can jump in or out of your position at any time to lock in a profit or cut a loss. Plus, you can maximize your potential payout with combos, multiplying your winnings by correctly predicting multiple events or across different events. In short, Kalshi is where you put your money, where your prediction is. Here's how it works. Users must deposit $10, put $10 on a trade, and then are rewarded $10. Download the CalSHI app and get $10 when you deposit with code SB60. Use promo code SB60 when you sign up to get $10 when you trade $10. So I want to talk about the testimony today in the Senate with Scott Bessett. And you can see the whole thing. It's on YouTube. And obviously this whole thing is political theater. But I think the Democrats look a lot better than the Republicans. I mean, obviously they're outraged at Trump and they're bringing it to the attention of Bessett. But Bessett is in a position of having to defend things that are indefensible, which is why he looks so ridiculous. So one of the points in particular are the tariffs, right? The Democrats are all over the Republicans about tariffs, and that's a great issue for the Democrats because the tariffs are making things more expensive. There's no way around that. Now, Bessant wants to cling to the idea that tariffs by definition are not inflationary, which, which they're not. Right. Because inflation is an expansion of the money supply or the credit supply. We're, we're doing that separately. But the tariffs increase some prices and decrease others. But yes, they're not technically inflation, but they do make a lot of things more expensive. And so if the issue is affordability more so than inflation, tariffs make a lot of products a lot less affordable. That is a reality. You can't get around that fact. But watching Scott Bessett try to get around that fact is what makes him look so ridiculous. So one of the things that the Democrats, you know, Maxine Water, I think, was one that was really harping on this is that they admitted that they were going to lower tariffs on certain food items, whether it was coffee or bananas or whatever, because they wanted the prices to go down. And so they said, well, we're going to lower the tariffs and that will lower the prices. And she's saying, what are you talking about? You told us that the tariffs wouldn't cause prices to go up. You told us that foreigners were going to pay the tariffs, so why should it matter? How should getting rid of the tariffs lower prices? Right. The only way getting rid of the tariffs lowers prices is if imposing the tariff raised prices. But they told us that that wasn't going to happen. Well, obviously it was a lie. But they still can't defend the tariffs and they can't say that, yeah, we care about affordability. All they keep doing is pointing to gas prices. Okay, so gas prices are down. Does that mean that all these other prices need to go up? How about if all those other prices were lower because you didn't put the tariffs on there? Now, of course the government needs the tax revenue. Right? That's another issue. But that's not going to be part of the political argument. You've just got the Republican Party in favor of taxing the middle class and the working poor and the non working poor. Tariffs are taxes on everyday Americans. They make the price of the things that ordinary American voters buy more expensive. So the Democrats could just take the high road on that and say, we don't want to tax struggling Americans. We don't want to make their grocery bills more expensive like the Republicans do. The Republicans want Americans to pay more for their food, which they do because the tariffs are on the food. Right? Even, like, you know, I think somebody pointed out that when they have sales taxes, a lot of states, you know, they exempt certain things from a sales tax. Well, because, you know, they're essentials. So, all right, we're not going to tax you when you buy groceries. If you go and eat in a restaurant. Okay, yeah, we're going to tax restaurant food. But if you go and, you know, you buy milk and bread at the supermarket, you know, there's not going to be a sales tax. But here, all the imported stuff, all the fruit, all the vegetables, everything that's coming, all the meat, all the seafood that's coming in from other countries, all tariff. But also, another thing, I think maybe it was Maxine Waters. She was talking about tariffs on baby products. I think she was talking about car seats. And she was saying, why don't, you know, why don't you have an exemption for all these baby products? And Bessant's answer was, well, all those products are made in China. Well, okay, so does that mean we don't need them? Does that mean women who just had babies and who now need to go out and buy a car seat for their baby, they should be forced to pay a higher price because China is the only one that makes them? I mean, we don't make them. I mean, what do you think is going to happen if you put a tariff on a product that we don't even have the ability to produce? Right. So you just got to pay the tariff. The Chinese are not saying, well, you know, there's a tariff on these car seats, and so we better cut our prices so that the Americans don't have to pay more. No, they're going to sell their baby, their car seats to us at the margin they need. And the fact that they're more expensive now, that's our tough luck. We're the ones that are imposing the taxes on ourselves. Right. It's not the Chinese. We want to buy their car seats, then we got to pay our tariffs. And so Maxine Waters saying, well, are you going to exempt that? And he's like, you know, he can't say no. And his main thing was like, well, you know, we need to punish China. Okay, so you're punishing China by making the products that Americans need and have to buy more expensive. How does that punish China? It doesn't. They're still selling us car seats. Now, maybe they're not selling as many because we can't afford them anymore. So maybe we're using more secondhand car seats. Maybe they're not as safe, but they're selling those car seats to someplace else. Somebody else is buying them. Maybe somebody in Canada is buying them or in South America or somebody in China is buying them. Right, but the Republicans look completely ridiculous to try to defend these tariffs the way they are. But. And so it's a real winning issue that the Democrats are gonna have in the elections. And of course, you know, they talked about the big market, the big stock market rally that we had when the President paused his tariffs. Right. Every time the markets react positively to tariffs, it's when they don't happen, right. Trump goes in and threatens tariffs and the market goes down. And then he says, okay, no tariffs, the market goes back up. What does that tell you? The market doesn't like him either. I mean, you basically can't beat somebody up with a hammer and then you stop hitting them. And now they're relieved that you're not hitting them anymore and say, see, I made you feel a lot better, right, because I stopped hitting you. No, you hit me in the first place. You can't claim credit for the relief when you're the one that caused the pain. That's what Trump does. He causes a lot of pain and then he takes credit when there's some relief from the pain that he caused on his own. But I think one of the worst parts about it is the graft and the self dealing and the conflict of interest. The Republicans look like complete hypocrites and fools defending Trump. Now, one of the issues now, because this was in a, I think a New York Times or a Wall Street Journal report. So the President's company, right? World Liberty Financial, which, you know, is owned by, you know, the President's family, I think it's Eric or Don Jr. You know, whatever. The president, he's like an honorary founder, you know, but it's his family business. And like three or four days, I think it was four days before the inauguration. So obviously the election results are in. Everybody knows Trump's the next president. And a company in the United Arab Emirates, right, bought half of the company for about $500 million. Now, the company was pretty much brand new, right? They just started it and they bought half of it for 500 million. And about 187 million of the 500 went directly into the pockets of the Trump family, right? It didn't stay in the company, it just went out. And the Trumps just put that money into, right in their pockets, right? Now, look, you can argue that, well, the fact that Donald Trump was gonna be the next President was totally irrelevant to the decision by this company in United Arab Emirates that they would have bought into it even if Trump had lost. Right. It didn't matter to them that it was the President of the United States whose pocket they were putting all this money in, Right. If he was not the president, if he was just an ordinary citizen, they would have been willing to put the money in and the same amount, right. That the valuation, right. What they paid the $500 million investment, that. That dollar figure would have been the same even if Trump had lost the election and he was gonna have zero political power, even if he had ended up in jail. Because, remember, if Trump didn't win the election, he could have been. He could have gone to jail, right? There are all these charges against him and all kinds of stuff like that. So if you want to try to argue that the sale price of this company would have been the same regardless of the outcome of the election, I mean, you know, there's no way you can make that argument. But then also, also, shortly after the deal is done, Trump signed something or does something to allow the UAE to buy these chips, these AI type chips that were previously not allowed. So the President puts millions, tens of millions, over 100 million in his pocket, and then almost immediately does a huge favor for the company and the nation that put that money in his pocket. Right? Now you could say, well, you know, it's a total coincidence, right? It was very objective. I didn't care that these guys just gave me $500 million. I'd have done it anyway, right? I'd have. This was good, you know, economics. It was a good decision. The Biden administration was wrong to impose this, you know, this limitation. And so it was just the right thing to do. And I was not in any way, you know, swayed by the fact that they just gave me all this money, Right. Did you know Fast Growing Trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and more than 2 million happy customers. They have all the plants your yard or home needs, including fruit trees, trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs, and houseplants, all grown with care and guaranteed to arrive healthy. It's like your local nursery, but anywhere. You live with more plants than you'll find anywhere else. Whatever you're looking for, Fast Growing Trees helps you find options that actually work for your climate, space, and lifestyle. Fast Growing Trees makes it easy to get your dream yard. Just click order, grow, and get healthy, thriving plants delivered to your door. Their alive and thrive guarantee promises that your plants Arrive happy, happy and healthy. No green thumb required, just quality plants you can count on. 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- [49:32]
Peter Schiff
What does leadership really look like? On the Power of Advice, a new podcast series from Capital Group. You'll hear from athletes, entrepreneurs, and executives who've led on the field, in the boardroom, and in their communities. It's not about titles. It's about impact. Discover what drives them and the advice they carry forward. Subscribe and start listening today. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc.
- [50:02]
Scott Bessant
Hey, Sal. Hank. What's going on? We haven't worked a case in years. I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy. Too easy. Think something's up? You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a great car at a great price, and it got delivered the next day. It sounds like Carvana just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed.
- [50:25]
Commercial Announcer
Buy your car today on Carvana.
- [50:29]
Scott Bessant
Delivery fees may apply. And even if that's true, right, even if it's completely true that all of this is on the up and up, you still don't do it because of the optics. Because it certainly doesn't look like it's on the up and up. And of course, it's probably not. There's no way. There's no way that this stuff would have happened but for Trump winning. And there's no Question that he was influenced by this investment. In fact, it probably was a quid pro quo. They probably knew that this was coming, and that's why they make the investment. And so the Democrats are rightly calling out the Republicans for this. And the Republicans, all they do is say, well, you know, but at least we're doing it out in the open. You don't have to find it in a laptop somewhere. Right? Yeah, we're not laundering it in shell companies. Yeah, they're not. They're like right out in our face with it. Right. They're basically doing what the Bidens did on a much bigger scale. And they're not hiding it. And supposedly that's what makes it okay. Their whole defense is, well, obviously there can't be anything wrong with it because we're not hiding it. It's just right out there. But, you know, that doesn't make it right just because you don't bother to hide it. I mean, it's complete chutzpah that you could do that, that you're just so cocky. But I guess that's it. Just say, look, you know, no, yeah, we're, we're, everybody can see. And we're just saying it's all on the up and up. And obviously, this is not a winning issue for the Republicans. I mean, it was a good issue when they raised the graft issue about the Bidens. And I, I completely stood behind the Republicans and I supported the Republicans when they went after Biden and his whole family. And it was clear that, you know, Biden should have been impeached, that they were committing crimes. Well, Trump administration is doing the same thing. And so the precedent that we're now setting, because believe me, right, the Democrats are going to win the next presidential election and they are licking their chops about the fact that they no longer have to hide the money they're stealing, that they could just do it all right out in the open because what's good for the goose. You set the precedent. This is now, okay, so presidents can set up companies and they could take money from foreign governments, foreign countries, and then they can sign favorable deals that enrich. I mean, they could use. You can use the power of the presidency. I mean, Donald Trump makes a big deal over the fact, well, I don't take my salary. Yeah. Why? That's small potatoes. I mean, who cares about four or five hundred thousand a year salary? I mean, when you're making hundreds of millions or billions of dollars and, you know, you look at all these people that come to the White House. You know, the Swiss were there, they give him a Rolex and, you know, all the, you know, gold bars. Now, you know, I think he's supposed to leave all that stuff at the White House. Like, maybe it gets put into his library. I don't think you just take it. Although I read somewhere that if you keep all those gifts, you have to pay income taxes on the gift. But that's still. That's still like a good deal, right? If you get a free Rolex and all you have to do is pay the income tax on it, right? So let's say you get a $60,000 Rolex and you pay, you know, $30,000 in income tax on it, so you got the Rolex for half price. That's still a pretty good deal. I mean, if Trump wants another Rolex, he should go buy one. He's got plenty of money. He shouldn't. I mean, I wouldn't take. If I was the president, I wouldn't take any of this stuff. I mean, I would just make it a pr. Don't come bribing me, Right? Don't give me stuff. Don't you have to pay homage to me. He's not a king, but people know that. You want something from Trump, you butter him up, right? You give him stuff, you flatter him, and this whole thing is ridiculous. But all of this is going to play very badly at the polls. The graft, the tariffs. And then you're gonna have the fact that the economy is weak, and Trump is gonna have to say that it's not weak, that it's strong. And we know, as I've said, it's a very easy winning formula when your opponent is lying about how great the economy is. All you have to do is tell the truth and you win. Right now, they don't know you're lying about what you're gonna do about it. That doesn't matter. What's obvious is that you're the genuine one. And that's what people really liked about Trump the first time, was that he talked about all the fake government numbers and all the bullshit that were being fed by the media and by Wall Street. And, yeah, that message resonated. And he won an election that nobody expected him to win but me. I thought he was gonna win because I knew that that message would resonate because I was saying the same thing. I mean, a lot of Trump's early stump speeches, I thought maybe the guys were listening to my podcasts, and that's why they were writing them, because he really sounded A lot like me, he was saying a lot of the same things that I was saying, and it worked. But then the minute he became president, he changed. All the fake economic numbers became real because he wanted to hide behind those same fake numbers. He wanted to claim, look how great everything is. And so how did he do that? He pointed to the same numbers that he said were fake when they were out under Obama. And so that's not gonna work because, you know, it hasn't worked in three elections. What works is leveling with the public and admitting what they know. Things are bad. Things have gotten worse. The cost of living is going up, not down. People are going deeper into debt. And, you know, the other ridiculous thing that Trump is doing and again, got caught up in this nonsense. Trump said when it comes to housing, right, he wants to solve the affordability problem, but the most important thing to him is that housing prices don't go down. Well, you can't solve the affordability problem if the things that are unaffordable don't get less expensive. That's what makes them more affordable. Housing is unaffordable because the prices are too high. Yet not only did Donald Trump say that he doesn't want the prices to come down, he specifically said he wants the prices to keep going up. Well, how are you going to solve housing affordability if the unaffordable houses become even more expensive? And then, of course, you know, Scott Bessant was criticizing today the immigrants, saying, you know, one of the reasons that housing prices are up is because of all these illegals that were coming in here bidding up prices, which they really weren't. But if that was the case, then why aren't we thanking them? Because Donald Trump says he loves these high home prices because people are rich now. Homeowners are rich. Well, if they're rich because a bunch of illegals came in and bid up the prices, then why is he mad at them? Because that's exactly what he wanted. He wanted these high home prices to enrich the people that already own homes. But if you enrich the people who already own homes, you make it impossible for the people who don't own homes to buy them. But the fact that it's impossible for the people who don't own homes to buy them means the people who own homes and are rich only think they're rich. They're only rich if they don't sell their home. They can pretend they're rich. They have a very expensive house that they can't sell, right? So as long as they don't try to sell the house. They can keep pretending they're rich. Now, what they can do with a house they can't sell is they could take out a loan against it. Right? But if you take out a loan against a house that nobody could buy because the price is too high, who's going to lose? The lender, the bank. Because ultimately the house price is going to come down. Because that's going to happen. Naturally. If people can't afford to buy houses, the market will reduce the price of a home until they're affordable. But Besson, you know, couldn't argue that. I mean, he's trying to argue that we got to keep home prices high, but we have to make them affordable. And all they can talk about is what we need, lower mortgage rates. But we're not going to get lower mortgage rates because interest rates are rising because we have so much debt. That is the problem. That's why the dollar is falling. That's why gold is at record highs. You've got this huge loss of confidence in the United States. I mean, right now you've got a loss in confidence in foreign central banks. They're buying gold, foreign investors, they're buying their stocks. You know, Bassett is in denial of this, but right now, it's foreigners who are losing confidence in America. But in November, in the midterms, it's gonna be Americans. American voters are losing confidence in the administration, in the Republican Party because they're the ones that are steering the ship of state and they're steering it off this cliff. And the voters know that. Anyway, that's it for today. I'm probably gonna do another Friday market wrap. That'll be the second podcast of the week. So make sure you subscribe to this channel, like the video, comment on it, and then go to The Schiff Gold YouTube channel. Subscribe to that because on Friday we'll wrap up this week. Probably gonna have another couple of volatile days in the gold and silver market over the next Thursday and Friday. So you wanna make sure and check that out on the SHIFT Gold channel in the meantime. Also, if you're not yet a subscriber to our newsletter at SHIFT Sovereign Strategic Assets, well, make sure and sign up for the free letter at SHIFT Sovereign and then check out the premium letter, Strategic Assets. Bye for now.
- [61:30]
Peter Schiff
If you're early in your career and looking for insight, inspiration and honest advice, listen to the Capital Ideas podcast. Hear from capital group professionals about leaning into the differences that make you unique, making decisions that last, and what it means to lead with purpose. The Capital Ideas Podcast from Capital Group. Available wherever you listen. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc.
- [61:57]
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